Agenda for Nitish's 2nd term: The key challenges ahead- Fri, Nov 26, 2010-

Agenda for Nitish's 2nd term: The key challenges ahead

Published on Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 09:15

Updated at Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 09:43

Today, Nitish Kumar will be sworn in as Bihar's Chief Minister for a second five-year term. On few occasions of democratic India’s history has an election verdict been so resounding and appreciative of improving governance standards but with all the expectations that he carries Nitish Kumar has his work cut out. In his own words, there is no time to talk—he needs to get down to work.

CNBC-TV18's Menaka Doshi sat down with NK Singh, Rajya Sabha MP from the Janta Dal (United) and professor, Prabhat Ghosh, director of the Asian Developoment Research Institute to discuss Nitish Kumar’s agenda that he needs to set in this new term and how he hopes to diversify growth.

NK Singh, Janta Dal (United)

Excerpts from Your World at 10 on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show »

Below is a verbatim transcript of the interview.

Q: It’s the second term, twice the expectations and you have got the base effect playing as well, so while Nitish Kumar achieved an average 11% and higher growth rate over the course of the last five years maybe its unrealistic for us to expect those kind of numbers over the course of the next five years. What do you see the prospects and the key challenges being for Nitish Kumar’s government in the second term?

Ghosh: I think during the last five years the most important achievement of the government was setting the law and order situation in a proper manner. That gave certain stability to the society and such activities like construction and trade etc, had increased very much, which was probably stagnating before Nitish Kumar came to power.

But I don’t think construction and trade can be a sustainable source of growth in coming years because the unmet demand has probably already been met in last five years. In the next five years, if the economy has to maintain its momentum of growth we have to go to the agricultural sector. It’s both a challenge as well as source of strength for us.

You must be knowing that Bihar is in the Gangetic plains and we have one of the most fertile lands in whole of India. There is every reason for expect that the green revolution that India had 30 years back in western part of the country can now be held in Bihar and you should have a good rate of 4-5% on agriculture for coming five-10 years. If that happens not only the growth will be inclusive, it will also generate sufficient amount of domestic demand for other sectors to expand.

In my opinion the most important sector where the coming government should pay attention is agriculture.

Q: The reason for that is because Bihar is not as rich in mineral resources as some of its neighbours—it has trouble with things like coal linkages and therefore may not have the potential to setup large power plant? Is that the reason why you are saying Bihar needs to focus on agriculture?

Ghosh: Yes. For industries to grow we should either have the advantage in terms of inputs like we should have mineral resources, which we don’t have. Otherwise we could also have industries if we had the local demand—there should be such a huge local demand that that industries from other states or even outside the country will be enthused to come to Bihar. Neither of these factors is relevant for Bihar.

Q: How do you assess this challenge? Bihar needs to focus on agriculture as the professor is pointing out. Do you think that will help you sustain the kind of growth levels that you have seen in the last five years—maybe even enhance them to some extent and therefore allow for some of those expectations that are riding now on Nitish Kumar to be met?

Singh: I agree with the sort of priority that Mr Ghosh has laid down but I would like to make a very quickly four or five points. First, I think that we need a continuation of the very policies that Nitish Kumar has pursued. This mandate yesterday is for the pursuit and the completion of the unfinished agenda. The unfinished agenda on roads—there is a long way to go—unfinished agenda on education—improving enrollment ratios further, bringing down drop out ratios, improving the quality of education, the entire area of vocational education, higher education.

In further improving the health sector and in further empowering women in terms of a more gainful employment in the mainstream and of course empowering others who have been left out. It is a continuation of the unfinished agenda of the sort of priorities with which he had began.

Second, I entirely agree with Mr Ghosh that since our comparative factors strength lies in agro and agro-processing sector, clearly farm incomes would rise dramatically if agricultural productivity were to double, since the gains of the green revolution have hardly touched East India and had hardly touched Bihar, there is a good case for doubling agricultural productivity in the next five years for which there is enormous scope.

Third, whatever you might say, we have to overcome the huge energy deficiency. You cannot even have agro processing industry, which may have low power intensity, but certainly will require power. We need to find out what we can do in the short run and what we can do in the medium-term to overcome the energy insecurity.

In the short run, we need to aggressively target power purchase agreements to buy power from states which maybe surplus or buy power on the large power, ultra mega power companies which are coming up or seek a higher allocation of the central government we need short-term solutions for augmenting supply. In the long run of course I do believe will be logjam on coal linkages, which you rightly mentioned, needs to be broken as we have several tradable proposals both from public and private sector for setting up large generating companies in Bihar.

Finally, I would say that in addition to all this that I have said, Bihar has a huge scope for harnessing its rich human resource development.

For complete discussion, watch videos.

Bihar will do well in the coming future taking into account the following.
1)English education in primary level.
2)Taking classes in agricultural production and storage for the village folks.
3)Connecting all villages by net.
4)Controlling the regular floods,which dampens the morale of farmers.
5)Set up a high quality Agricultural University with research facility,if required bring researchers from abroad,there should be accountability.
6)Develop independent solar power generating stations in villages.
7)Large lift irrigation projects,supply water for agriculture by means of pipes
8)Good pliable roads is a must.
The above will instill confidence for the rural folk.
NO TALK ONLY ACTION. (A COMMENT)